True Nature
by AStormIsBrewing
Summary: It was one of those questions that he never wanted to answer.


Disclaimer: Chant with me:_ Means to an end, means to an end . . . _

Sigh. Sometimes, I hate plot bunnies. This one attacked me, see? I never thought I would actually write C/7, because I really do think whoever came up with it is a cotton-headed ninny-muggins, but I guess this just goes to prove I really am a mercenary and I don't have any morals.

But this just had a slight echo of truth in it, and I couldn't think of any other way to format it. So even though the plot device makes me want to curl up in a ball and ignore the world, the end, for me, justifies the means.

This muse is using me as a mouthpiece. That doesn't mean I have to like it.

Oh! And there's character death, too. Sorry.

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True Nature

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"You have this bourgeoisie notion that in order for love to be real, it has to be permanent. Nothing is permanent. That's just a fact. We move in an out of loving other people, but that doesn't make the love any less real." — Bones

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"You are grieving." By the crack in Seven's voice and the redness in her eyes, it didn't sound as though that observation was any less true for herself. "Yet you have said before that she would much rather 'go down fighting' than be tied to a desk for the rest of her career. Explain."

Chakotay snaked his arm around the ex-borg's waist. "Just because it's fitting doesn't make it any easier." He drew her closer and kissed her forehead. "How long can you stay?"

"The Dean is unhappy that I have stalled my lecture series. I must return tomorrow evening."

Seven watched her husband's reaction, a slow nod without breaking his concentration on the grave marker. Crows and geese cawed and squawked in the wind as it ripped off the bay, bringing the smell of brine and the threat of storms, but he stood as a stone himself, unaware of any of it. It was unnatural for a man who insisted on living in the moment. It was not necessary for his wife to cast far for a cause.

"Did you love her?"

"Seven, you know the answer to that. Of course I did." There it was, confusion and hurt, compounding the solid, silent grief. "I thought we were past that."

"Do you love her still?"

Chakotay was quiet for a long moment, staring at the name etched into the stone. The epitaph was an ancient poem — not Dante or Shakespeare or Colridge, no more fires of hell or cursed mariners. Just a calm acceptance and a wry bit of humor in the words of James Thomson. Their former captain had been elevated in rank upon her death, but that seemed empty and frivolous to Seven: to the lives she had touched, she had always been and would always be the Captain.

No matter what they might have wished at some point in their lives.

Chakotay was still lost in his reverie when he spoke again. "Once you start loving a person, I don't think you can really stop. The way I loved her changed, just like she and I changed. Our time for passion came and went, and I had to watch it leave. There was a time when I thought I would never forgive her for making me do that, but she would have never forgive me if I had pushed her and I know I couldn't have borne that. And I could never not forgive her. It still hurt like hell to watch her destroy herself, and I'm glad we got home before any more damage could be done."

"And yet, she is still gone."

Chakotay took a deep breath of the autumn air, crisp and clean. Full of life. "Do you really think a little thing like death could stop the Captain?"

"Dead is dead. She has been decaying too long to be reanimated, and her wounds were too severe even if it could have been done. You are holding on to pointless—" And here entered one of those paradoxical facets of humanity: that which brought greatest joy could inflict greatest pain. Seven wondered why she had ever desired her humanity as she angrily rubbed her eyes and shrugged her husband's hand from her shoulder.

"Seven, we all know what happens to the body after it dies, but no one really knows what happens to _us_. We all have our theories, but we have no way to prove or disprove them." He looked at the grave (empty, of course — she would settle for nothing less than eternity amongst the stars) then back to the sky. "Kathryn will be with us as long as we need her. She could never abandon her crew. Even if it is just through memory, there's more than enough we could still learn from her."

Seven turned to meet her husband's eyes. "The captain taught me many things without learning them herself. Foremost in my mind is 'Never let a good thing slip away.'"

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A/N: Ugh . . . and I just ate dinner, too . . .

I actually tried to write it well, but I'm afraid I didn't get it right.

I made a couple of references, to 'Dante's Inferno' and Colridge's 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner,' (not the song) but also to a poem called 'Once in a saintly passion,' by James Thomson that I chose for Janeway's epitaph. You should read all of them, and you can find at least two of them on the internet. Do it. Do it now!

But not before you tell me how I did.

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Please Review!


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